


we're the gladiators

by andibeth82



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Asexual Character, Bechdel Test Pass, Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 14:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3449765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/pseuds/andibeth82
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angie holds herself like a woman who’s never known what it means to have your life compromised, and Peggy holds herself like a woman who’s still trying to climb out of a ditch and keep her footing on the way up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we're the gladiators

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Onlymystory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onlymystory/gifts).



> Your prompt gave me some fun ideas to work with, namely, the idea of ace or demi Peggy Carter, which is something I've never considered. I was initially a little hesitant on how to tackle this, but thankfully, _Agent Carter_ came along at just the right time :) You also mentioned you were also pretty open, so I hope you don't mind what I came up with.
> 
> Thanks to **geckoholic** for beta and brainstorm and everything else under the sun. This wouldn't have gotten done without you.
> 
> Title from Lorde's "Glory and Gore."

The first time Angie serves Peggy a meal on the house, it’s a pile of loose eggs and two pieces of crisp, burnt toast.

She hands the plate over, sliding it across the diner counter, all smiles and carefree attitude in contrast to Peggy’s tight grins and stiff fingers. Angie holds herself like a bird; one that flits freely between tables and never has a problem swooping down on predators. Peggy holds herself like a china doll, always careful never to let her body language give away too much of who she is underneath the suits and the curled hair and the blood-red lipstick.

Angie holds herself like a woman who’s never known what it means to have your life compromised, and Peggy holds herself like a woman who’s still trying to climb out of a ditch and keep her footing on the way up.

“You alright there, English? You haven’t touched your food.”

And Peggy smiles, because she’s realized that sometimes, everything is fine if she can give the illusion that she is, too.

“I’m okay, Angie, thank you.” She picks up her fork and shovels some eggs into her mouth while Angie matches her grin, though Peggy notices that the other woman’s lips don’t have quite as much of a rigid look to them as Peggy feels hers probably do.

“Well, I was beginning to think I’d screwed up your food and you wanted pancakes instead of eggs. I’ve only watched you order breakfast every day for the past week.” Angie leans across the counter, and Peggy can see the way her body is shifting against the table as one foot sweeps back and forth against the floor.  “Long week?”

“Immensely,” Peggy says at once, taking another bite, and Angie grins again.

“Those bastard assholes keeping you down at the phone company?”

(And sometimes, Peggy forgets that Angie still thinks she works for a _phone company_.)

“Well,” Angie continues when Peggy doesn’t immediately respond. “You’d never know it, considering how little you talk about your work. I wish I had your restraint. I think I talk too _much_ about my work. Or my auditions. Or lack thereof. Or –”

“Not everything is as simple as pouring coffee, Angie,” Peggy interrupts, trying to keep the bite out of her voice because she means it, she really and truly means it, and sometimes she thinks she might wish her job wasn’t so taxing or secretive. Angie purses her lips.

“So it would seem,” she says, grabbing a pot of coffee, and when she doesn’t continue, Peggy breathes an unconscious sigh of relief that Angie has apparently missed the hostility in her tone. She reaches for her wallet, but Angie shakes her head and gives her another warm grin.

“On the house, English. We’re housemates now, remember?”

“Housemates,” Peggy repeats and picks up her coffee, leaving blood colored stains on the white cup.

 

***

 

Peggy walks home the same way she does every day, with one hand on her pocketbook, close to where she’s hidden her gun, her other hand a tight fist n in case she needs to react quickly to something that she won’t catch in the dark. She slips by the front desk of The Griffith with little fanfare and makes her way up to her room just as stealthily, closing the door quietly behind her.

It hadn’t unnerved her too much when she had come to live here, all the rules and the ladies and the sneaking around; truth be told she was more unnerved by the fact that she knew she would most likely have to find more creative ways to keep Angie out of her space, having fewer places to escape to when the well-meaning waitress decided she wanted to share a last minute book recommendation. She undresses quickly, placing her jewelry on the dresser and stops with one hand on the mahogany, the sight of the black and white photo positioned delicately against the mirror causing a pain inside her chest.

There was a point, after it all, when Peggy had panicked and thought to herself that she might have been in love with the _idea_ of Steve Rogers moreso than the _person_ of Steve Rogers. She’d quashed that notion as soon as she’d considered it, however, because she knew that wasn’t true. Because Peggy loved – _loves_ – Steve Rogers, Peggy _knows_ she loves Steve Rogers, and she’s known that since the first time she saw him at Fort Lehigh. She’s known that since the first time she saw him without the bulky shoulders and the beefed up chest, when it was just Steve Rogers with the asthmatic lungs and thin flop of hair and genuine attitude that spoke to Peggy more than any other man who had ever said they wanted to serve their country and fight.

It was why she had backed Erskine and Colonel Phillips when they wanted Steve for the program in the first place; it was why she had insisted that she be a part of it, no matter what the results were, even when Stark had purposefully showed up at her house to attempt to talk her out of it.

(And Peggy doesn’t regret the slap or the curt response before she had closed the door in his face, because if she had learned anything from watching Steve Rogers, it was that you didn’t have to let bigger people push you around.)

Peggy respects Steve Rogers. Peggy understands Steve Rogers. Peggy has spent her life trying to uphold everything she’s learned from Steve Rogers, so that his ideals and sacrifice don’t go to waste in a world that routinely seems to remember him only for throwing punches, and for his superhero physique.

So Peggy can’t figure out why, when she’s supposed to _know_ she loves Steve Rogers, there’s something that feels like a gaping hole opening up in her heart.

 

***

 

When Angie first asks Peggy to accompany her to a craft fair in Union Square on a weekend that’s supposed to be rainy but has unexpectedly turned dry, Peggy refuses.

She refuses on traditional grounds, peppering her response with work excuses until Angie replies, “you always work,” and then on the grounds of not really being one to drink until Angie counters, “but I’ve seen you throw back at least two whiskeys during game night.” And so Peggy resigns herself to thinking that it won’t be so bad, maybe, to let her guard down, and at least if she went out she would be in public, which would make it easier to escape if she felt like she needed to.

“Come on, English,” Angie says from outside her door, almost as if she’s learned that’s the only way to talk to Peggy when she’s not eating or coming home from the diner. “I really want to go to this, and I don’t want to go alone.”

“Can’t you go with someone else?” Peggy calls from inside, and she can almost see Angie’s frustrated face behind her closed eyes. “What about that dancer from Iowa?”

“She’s not answering her phone, and everyone else is busy.”

“I highly doubt that’s the case,” Peggy mutters as opens her eyes. She slips on her shoes, and then swings the door open to greet Angie’s overexcited face.

“Oh, good. I was beginning to think I was talking to a ghost.”

“She’d be quite the polite ghost,” Peggy says with a bit of a snap but Angie seems unfazed, smiling and gesturing with one hand as Peggy walks out and shuts the door behind her.

 

***

 

Truly, the market isn’t that bad, and Peggy thinks it could be worse, all things considered. But Angie is polite and sweet and seems to be more interested in just _talking_ than trying to ask Peggy about her job or her latest whereabouts, and after an hour or so, Peggy starts to feel herself relax, enough to find a small piece of enjoyment in the afternoon.

“And Isabelle – oh god, Isabelle. Do you know the other day, I caught her in the bathroom with a pregnancy test?” Angie’s voice rises as they walk briskly past a vendor selling bread and jam. “Swear to god! I told her she’s going to get herself kicked out if she’s not careful, but she didn’t seem to want to hear it. Sometimes I don’t know what’s wrong with the girls here. Rule breaking, fine, I mean _I’ve_ even done it, but no one is _careful_ about it.”

Peggy sighs, rubbing a gloved hand against her forehead. “Do all the girls in this place have secret relationships that they’re hiding under the rug like mice?”

“Well, not all the girls,” Angie says a little slyly, and Peggy tries to ignore her tone. “Oh come on, English. Don’t you ever have a fella you wanna bring back? What about that guy in the suit that always comes by the diner?”

“No,” Peggy says sharply, reacting without thinking about it, and Angie stops in her tracks, looking surprised.

“Okay, hey. Just an observation,” she amends, sounding a little surprised. Peggy forces out what she hopes borders on somewhat of a genuine smile.

“Right. I know. I’m sorry, Angie.”

“Hey, it’s fine. I get it.” Angie shrugs, starting to walk again. “You cold? Wanna stop for some tea? I think I can get us a discount at work if you wanna head back that way.”

Peggy feels herself flinch as Angie loops her arm through her own, and shakes her head.

“I think I might just head home.”

“Work stuff,” Angie says a little sadly, but there’s a look in her eyes that seems to show that she understands. Peggy nods.

“Something like that.”

She turns and heads towards the subway before Angie can say or do anything else that makes her feel like she’s lost all semblance of her sanity.

 

***

 

This is how the world knew Peggy Carter: as the girl who loved Steve Rogers, as the girl who cried when Captain America went into the ice. Peggy can’t refute that, because she did cry, and when she thinks about what Steve left her with – and the world he helped her create – she hurts with something that she knows is intense and real.

It was, in a way, the problem of becoming a product of what the world decided she should be seen as: a woman who hung onto a man she adored, a woman who yearned for the days that her love would return and sweep her off her feet like the ending of a magical fairytale. It was, like the phone company and the chasteness and prim clothing, what the public wanted. It was, before the war, something that hadn’t been as important, not until the fighting and deployments tore couples apart in a way that caused people to engage in secret affairs, or drink their problems away, or cry into their pillows. And The Griffith is proof enough of that; Peggy hasn’t missed the fact that every girl in her building seems to have their own idea of how to deal with craving of intimacy in times of being alone -- the close call with Stark in the dumbwaiter had been not so much an annoyance as much as a wake-up call in that respect.

There’s a feeling that percolates in her stomach and forms a rock, and the silent question she’s asking herself hangs in the air, unanswered; the face that stares back from the mirror looks more confused than she feels.

 

***

 

“Good to see you, English,” Angie says when Peggy opens the diner door a few hours later; the place is nearly deserted and Angie is sitting on top of the counter pouring herself a shot of whiskey from a half-filled bottle. Dainty legs swing back and forth as Peggy turns to close the door.

“Are you working alone?”

Angie nods through the rough sound of her shoes hitting the floor as she jumps off the tabletop.

“Yep. Just me tonight. Everyone else went home. Fortunately, I think we’re going to be light on the drunks.”

“Except for you,” Peggy says lightly, gesturing to the bottle, and Angie shrugs.

“Well, I’d still say I have my work cut out for me,” she replies with a small grin. “Hey, you want some?”

“Not really, no,” Peggy says honestly, taking a seat at the bar while Angie moves behind the counter. She watches the other woman for a long time, focusing on her body, on every turn that’s calculated and sharp. She carries herself in a way that only someone who has done this for years would be able to work, and Peggy feels herself soften at that realization. She had snapped at Angie for not understanding the preciseness and severity of her job, but the truth was, Angie was just as competent in her abilities as Peggy was…albeit in a very different way.

“Have you had relationships, Angie?” Peggy watches the other woman’s shoulders flinch slightly, and when Angie turns around she’s frowning, her brow furrowed.

“Sure. Why?”

“I…” Peggy sighs, realizing she’s unsure how to continue without sounding open and vulnerable, two things she knows she’s not ready to reveal in her friend’s presence. “I’m not quite sure how people do it,” she says finally. “Fall so hard for someone, so quickly.”

“Oh.” Angie plunks a full pot of coffee down on the counter with a little too much force. Well, it’s connection, right? Feeling like you want to be with someone, getting to know them?”

“I suppose,” Peggy says slowly, thinking of Steve. She’d never doubted the strength of Steve’s love for her, but even that knowledge feels like it should carry a different kind of weight. Angie leans over the table.

“You got somewhere you need to be in that head of yours, English?”

Peggy shakes herself out of her thoughts, realizing she’s let herself zone out. “No,” she says, only too late remembering where she is and hoping Angie won’t press her further. “But…I’m starting to think maybe I do have to talk to someone.”

“Who?” Angie’s eyebrow rises and she looks confused, until she doesn’t. “Oh, right,” she continues a little reluctantly. “That guy friend, the one that always comes in and sits in the opposite booth like you’re pretend spies or something.”

Peggy feels her stomach clench at Angie’s words. “No, not him,” she admits, looking away. She watches out of her peripheral vision as Angie reaches out, putting her hand on Peggy’s arm.

“Hey, you know it’s okay, right?” She smiles and draws back. “I mean, if you’re not sure of someone’s feelings, you don’t need to act on it. To hell with men, yeah?” Angie pours another shot of whiskey, downing it in one go, and Peggy can’t help the beginnings of a small smile.

“Yes. Would you mind if I talked to you, then?”

“Seriously?” Angie’s face stretches as her smile widens. “English, I thought you'd never ask.”

Peggy matches her grin. “In that case…” She stops, looking up, catching the other woman’s eye. “In that case, if you don’t mind, I quite think I’d like that cup of tea, now.”


End file.
